To create a different aged dragon, do you essentially build a new monster? In Pathfinder it gave different stats for different age categories, and IIRC most modifications were just done through templates (usually).
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So before I begin with my thoughts I will say that I tend to play more 5e nowadays so I may be biased. I'll also point out that the entire system changed so the whole "omfg nerfed" and number related stuff can't be judged fairly until the game is actually PLAY tested and not read-tested. Anywho... All the terminology and cross referencing: I think this issue is mostly to do with this being a played book and a new system and formatting. I hope (and believe) that in the full release we'll get a better layout and format with less flipping around and everything will be clearer. Yes it's annoying right now but it's not a deal breaker and it's not like, for the most part, mechanics need to change to address most of this. That said the terminology on some stuff needs to be cleaned up a little. Action economy: Personally I'm really liking this system. It's easy to grasp and provides a lot of room for flexibility. Seems solid. Character creation: I like the process here as well and the race+class+background provides an interesting approach to stats, which I'm really digging so far. Ancestries: I miss calling them races but that's not that important. I like the setup even if the feats are somewhat underwhelming in a lot of cases. I think there needs to be some fine-tuning here. As for the Half-Elf and Half-Orc issue, I think it's a cool twist to be a modifier for humans. It opens up a lot of room for options potentially but again needs some tuning. Background: I'd like to see more and more skill feats/skills tied to each one. Not a big change to implement and, given that this is a played version, I can see that being addressed or changed. Classes: Oh boy. This is a mixed bag for me. Without playing everything I can't really say whether I like the way it works or not. There's some potential balance and utility problems throughout based on a few read-throughs but there's also a lot of cool stuff. I really love the idea and set up of class feats. Some may need to be moved around and tweaked or changed but that's a given for any playtest. I've seen a lot of complaints about how basic a lot of them are but this is the ground floor basic ass 101 level of class mechanics and abilities here. Ultimately it comes across to me as a cool build your class type thing where you choose the abilities and moves you want your character to have. A very cool idea with a lot of potential that, with some tweaking, I think would work VERY well. Some stand outs for me though:
Barbarian - Love the totems and, while 3 on 1 off seems a little weird (get angry for a bit then a second of tired then go again?) it's a good way to make sure rage gets used more and fulfills some of the class fantasy. Using class mechanics more is almost always more fun. Also did I mention that I really like the totems? I really like the totems. Bard - I haven't had a chance to look through Bard as much as I would like and have some mixed feelings on what I've sat down with. At least in theory I like the ideas and themes of the muses, with the scholar, performer and ADD master of skills. Cleric - Another class I haven't been able to really read through and focus on (it's been a very busy couple of days). I like the channel versatility tho. Druid - Ouch. No. Bad. I mean the super limited timing on animal form? This IS a straight up nerf regardless of how the new system works. Druids are iconic shapeshifters and now you can do it VERY few times a day for a minute at a time. Between those two restrictions what's the damn point? I'm still unsure about animal companions and j ist minions in general but at least the 1 action to command your animal to use 2 might be decent action economy and the work together benefits are cool and unique. But Druid seems to need some love in a bad way. Fighter - I really like this. Class feats work VERY well here IMO. It feels very right. Also the enhancement/open/press abilities or terms or whatever are super cool IMO. Honestly this might be the best version of a fighter I've seen. It might be too early to day that but damn I'm actually hyped for this. Monk - Similar to fighter. I like the set up at least and the feats essentially equating to abilities works well here. Paladin - Not much to say right now Ranger - Same as above Rogue - Haven't looked through as well as others but looks good. I've been spoiled a little by how sneak attack works in 5e and how much easier it is but that isn't a big deal really. Sorcerer - Really loving how bloodlines work. Really really awesome IMO. Wizard - Not much to say at present Skills: Cool that skills are now broken down by action. Not cool that recalling knowledge takes an action. Again some of it needs some tweaking but I like it overall. Feats: Some good some bad. Battle Medic bolstering isn't a great move IMO but we'll see. Equipment: Denting - Ehh. Cool idea, missed execution? Full Plate - Just worse than 1/2 plate now? Weapon Traits - Uhh that's a lot of stuff. It's cool in theory but I'll wait to see it in practice. Magic and Magic Items - I haven't looked over this much due to the sheer amount of content. Also, it doesn't mean as much since there's a limit to what one can glean outside of actual play and practice. I like the idea of the four types of magic tho. And I'm just not getting into magic items right now. I will say I'm cautious about resonance. We'll see how it works out but I'm not entirely sold on the idea so far. Archetypes and Multiclassing - So I REALLY like these. In theory. It's a VERY cool way to do prestige classes. For Archetypes...it's very much not the same as 1e. It doesn't modify a class which...I mean like I said with Alchemist, I miss it there. In other classes the way feats work means it's already kinda worked in. The pirate is whatever and Cavalier is cool but I'd like the see what else Paizo has got. Multiclassing...I mean...it's a very awesome idea and potential way to do it but I don't think the balance is quite there yet. On the one hand the half X and half Y is totally missing as an option and the X with a splash of Y is too weak to warrant it. It needs some work and balance. All told I'm very excited to try 2.0 and see the final product. It has some issues to work out, sure, but most things do. The systems themselves though seem fantastic and, with work, I can see 2e far surpassing 1e after some changes. I know there's a lot of knee jerk reactions and frustration with some parts and A LOT of comparing to 1e, especially with magic and numbers, but I feel like that might change once people start actually playing and getting used to things. And I'm sure any other problems will mostly be ironed out before release. Overall quite happy with 2e!
How would this work? One of my character ideas is (some undecided stuff)
Assuming he succeeds at his goal how would that work? As a slight aside what emotional focus would be a good fit given her innocence and unjust death across all options?
So I take it that Medium is more basic but is capable of greater specialization but is limited to that 1 extremely focused role with a number of penalties. The occultist meanwhile has more baseline utility and can change roles more easily but to a far lesser degree (and no rogue/cleric coverage)? Why would you take one over the other?
So a very serious work injury has left me out of work for 2 months. Having mostly caught up on my TV and book backlog (and being unable to game due to severed nerves/tendons until healed) I decided to start work on my next campaign (current one only has about 3 months left and is basically done on my part). So my BBEG is essentially an ancient Strigoi or as close as one can come. I have his appearance and theme down (grey skin, a "sharper" Voldemort face, ancient tattoos and crimson robes with gold jewelry) and his class (qiqong monk to really drive his overwhelming strength and powers home. Question is: how should I Vamp him up? I plan to use mythic mostly as a post 20 thing, and want to try to keep its inclusion. The main options I was considering are: Mythic Dread Vamp, Mythic Nosferatu or just plain Mythic. But would mythic work well enough for dread or a Nosferatu? There's clearly a few issues and some overlap. I was also perhaps considering Nosferatu/Dread with a mythic path if there would be too many issues with mythic vamp. Overall just looking for done feedback with the best or smoothest way to make this big old baddie.
So our group ran into some big problems recently when our DM gave us level 9 and 6 mythic tiers and we never saw enemies using mythic against us. He then decided to remove it which, on top of previous issues, has set off a chain reaction of mini debates and various issues and complaints. And amongst those issues are some genuine questions. And so here I am seeking answers (if people don't mind) and looking to discuss some of the issues. 1) Our DM the in mythic "as is" out of the box and never looked at what we choose leading to the broken balancing. This has been the biggest issue. I argue that good balanced DMing requires knowing what your players are doing, making calls if needed (one players takes issue that not everything has errata and that the DM needs to decide and says that that's broken) and adjusting the campaign accordingly. Easier encounters I play to the parties strengths and I use their weaknesses for harder encounters. Our DM throws "minions" with barely 20 hp max at us in waves along with some tank enemies and some damage plus an elite or boss enemy. I like to use a combination of monsters and adding class levels to humanoids to tailor enemies rather than make simple mass produced throwaway filler enemies. He has also been giving us 1 encounter a day so we nova spells and mythic, then he (and another player) say mythic is too OP because we wreck everything. Both also say we would be wrecked if he used full mythic against us. Is running things out of the box bad DMing? Should he be expected to keep the party in check and work on tailoring combat? What is, in essence, good DMing on a more logistic level? What *should* a DM do to balance things? 2) Is 3.X more balanced? PF is undeniably more interesting IMO but I'm wondering which had better balance, and why? 3) Having never played rogue and only rarely used it for NPCs, what's so bad about it? Why is it often called "the worst class"? 4) What are the balance issues with Barb, Monk and Summoner? 5) Should players always optimize? When shouldn't they and how far should they take it? All the way to min/max? 6) How should a DM balance if one player takes bad options and sucks and another takes the best and wrecks face? I suggested talking to them, helping optimize the weak one, tailor combat for/against them (not to "get wrecked" of face roll levels, which one idiot refuses to understand) and help tailor the situations they find themselves in to be helpful. I also suggested possible respecs. Lastly, mythic. Same guy being difficult asked if I thought it was balanced. I answered that I didn't. The next question was: is it the DMs jib to fix it? I would think yes, if he wants to use it. It isn't that hard to roughly balance abilities IMO. A few rulings and moving where things are in the tiers and it's much better. I also think you need to do a little extra work when cresting encounters, putting more effort into individual monsters and the enemy groups/composition and their action economy and usage of mythic. Anyone have any thoughts or answers on any of this?
A little background before I jump into the main point: I've been in several mythic campaigns, all by different DMs, which reached anywhere from mythic 1 only to mythic 6 or 7. There've been hiccups with how strong mythic makes players or how strong the bosses need to be, but never anything major. In general no players min/maxed or anything of that nature. For example I always liked Sanctum, Eldritch Flight and Enduring Armor. No one ever took things like Mirror Dodge or looked to mythic up their strongest spells. That said the group I'm in now is...shall we say...very min/max-y. Our DM currently has us at level 9 mythic 6, fighting custom colossal monsters that can kill us in 1 or 2 turns. Our last humanoid opponent was a dual wielding whip master who, in 1 or 2 turns, could pin and tie up opponents to take them out (he also threatened 10 or 15 feet). One member of the party is a tank with nearly 40 ac. Another is a Barbarian who (I don't remember how) goes Large and starts dishing about 100 damage on average. Both have mirror dodge as well. The tank was dealing no damage but surviving and the Barbarian kept coming close to dying so both have raised issues with mythic unbalancing things. We're due to have a group discussion on whether or not we remove mythic. Personally I believe that anyone who wants to min/max and make the campaign rocket tag can do so without mythic, just not quite as easily. However I want to see what others think on balancing mythic and/or somehow fixing the campaigns balance before I sit down and present my thoughts. I'm the only other one at the table who has DMd and always tend toward the level 1-5 local, 6-10 regional etc scale rather than "level 6 fighting angels". That is to say I prefer to keep things somewhat lower key and try to avoid anything becoming min/max'd to begin with. So I'm not quite sure how to approach the issue (and yes, before anyone asks, our DM is looking for possible solutions or thoughts by players).
In the campaign my DM is running there's a nearly all powerful (Ancient Red Wyrm w/ 20 Sorc levels) dragon who can naturally take a human form. In addition to this at each mythic ability tier (1, 3, 6 and 9) we get another character. It's odd but basically our group has poor regular attendance so we have missions each week and we can choose which character to use and the rest are off doing whatever (scouting, depending the base, getting more money/materials etc). So for my last character I was thinking of having a red dragon who chose to become a human. Our DM has said he would allow it but he would like if there was an actual way to pull it off. If there isn't an actual way he would prefer I play a half-dragon or full dragon (which I have zero interest in. I just want the flavor of having been a dragon in the past and being the ancestor of a draconic-bloodrager party member). So I'm turning to the forums. I can't seem to find any way to become human nor can I find any way to take human form for more than a couple of minutes (if I were to be a full dragon).
...that I'll be applying the permanent 4 (or less) point evolution from the Hunter archetype? I've played most classes several times but never played a Druid(/Hunter) or a Cavalier before. Druid has just never been top of my list and the staircases, rock walls to be climbed and often narrow dungeon crawls have killed any/every mount idea I ever had. I've only ever had 2 "animal companions". One was a wolf companion for my ranger who died very quickly given my DMs penchant for difficult encounters and the rangers lower leveled pet. The other pet was a riding gecko who I never brought into the dungeons. Aside from that I've played several summoners but I daresay there's a large divide between companions and Eidolons. My point is, I don't have much (or functionally any) experience with animal companions so I'm at a loss for my Hunters companion. I really like the primal archetype and that free 4 point evolution can be a huge help. I was thinking:
Flying won't have much use as our DM HATES players having flying. Almost every dungeon has a low ceiling and the only time we ever get height is when most/all of the enemies fly. So I daresay the flying evolution (or a Roc for that matter) would be a waste. So given that I'm considering those 3 and can add the evolution, do any of them really stand out and/or are any of them really bad choices?
Every time to try to proceed to checkout it asks me to sign in and then sends me back to the store blog. I'm using firefox and when I tried it with chrome it erased my cart and sent me back instead.
Basically I'm creating a War Priest 6/Duelist 4/Hierophant or Champion 5 character. My race is Tiefling with Vestigial Wings trait. I'm looking for a reliable way to fly and all I see are Wings of Flying which, at level 10, severely break the bank. I was looking at other work arounds and the legendary item ability caught my eye. Specifically, the art of armor with wings. If I choose the legendary item ability and give my armor flying, could it theoretically allow me to fly, since I'm wearing the armor? It's a neat idea and is a better option that taking the dual path feat and then choosing the mostly useless Archmage (useless given my classes) to allow me to fly.
About to start a campaign with some friends who live nearby and the campaign will most likely (95+% chance) be really long lasting. Gonna have the PCs chasing an aspiring demigod through time. He is hunting down the Swords of Sin to use to grant him power (not just as weapons but as objects of power) to ultimately awaken and then control Kazavon. I plan to include a few artifacts on the players side. First:
Next:
Lastly:
I want him to really scream evil demigod dragon at the brink of actually becoming a god. But there aren't any rules (that I've found) for beings who are larger than the standard 8x8 colossus. Additionally, players will (after an epic event) be able to take levels in a 2nd class as a substitute for no epic-levels. Now I would simply take a great wyrm blue dragon, slap on the ravener template (Kazavon is noted as being close to a Ravener Blue Great Wyrm) and then maybe toss in a Giant and Advanced, but since I've rarely worked with epic levels, let alone respeccing a monster to be an epic level boss, I'm not sure of the best way to go about this. I know the campaign won't reach that level in a fairly long time (at least a few months after start) but I like to make sure my endgame can work so that I can change the end, and middle/set-up if I need to. Edit: I should probably note that I'm not definitely going with all these plans. Depending on how the players...well...play and how much 'epic' they want (1 player loves the ascension into gods at the end after a mind-blowing insane adventure while another generally likes more 'simple' plots which end at 20 or soon after). If the campaign takes a lesser turn, I would cut the human villain, time travel and swords of sin in favor of building a campaign just around those later, focusing on Kazavon in this one (again, it depends on what the party seems to gravitate towards. Last time (I was a player then) they loved having gained the ability to warp space slightly, then time and eventually massive wish-sized warps where they recreated a destroyed universe). |